Research

A collaboration between international and Vanderbilt University researchers is helping to update a tried-and-true medical technology for the 21st century. The development of an intelligent and autonomous Magnetic Flexible Endoscope holds the promise of making colonoscopies safer, less painful, more widely available and less expensive. The article “Enabling the future of colonoscopy with intelligent and... Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and their colleagues have determined a key factor as to why COVID-19 appears to infect and sicken adults and older people preferentially while seeming to spare younger children.  Read More

A new therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer that has been granted fast track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is being tested in a phase 3 clinical trial at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Read More

Marjan Rafat, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received an award for young and innovative cancer researchers from the Concern Foundation. With it, she will investigate whether and how radiation therapy for triple negative breast cancer encourages circulating tumor cells to return to the original tumor site, creating conditions for relapse. She... Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers are enrolling adults aged 75 and over to study whether taking atorvastatin, a drug commonly used to lower cholesterol also called Lipitor®, can help maintain health by preventing dementia, disability, and heart disease. Read More

A study group of more than 600,000 patients with type 2 diabetes, identified from electronic medical records in the PCORnet national research network, could be valuable for assessing the safety of type 2 diabetes drugs. Read More

The lab of Ethan Lippmann, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering, seeks to model, understand, and ultimately treat neurodegeneration, focusing primarily on the blood-brain barrier, a border of protective blood vessels found in the brain. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lippmann’s team in the Neurovascular Engineering and Therapeutic Design Laboratory was firing... Read More

Younger parents were much less likely than older parents to say they planned to vaccinate their children and themselves against COVID-19. Read More

Changes in connectivity in the brain’s white matter may be a novel neuroimaging biomarker for assessing Alzheimer’s disease progression. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified a new molecular partner — and potential therapeutic target — in a signaling axis that drives lung cancer. Read More

A new study from Vanderbilt epidemiologists suggests that it’s time to reconsider clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of early-stage breast cancer in older women. Read More

Twenty-nine prominent faculty from across campus comprise Vanderbilt University’s latest endowed chair honorees. They include scholars working in diverse areas—from election analysis and lung cancer research to the nascent field of neurolaw, exploring the brain mechanism underlying legal decision-making. Read More

Perfecting MRI images with deep learning, Vanderbilt and VUMC researchers have created a technique that corrects image distortions, which provides more accurate information for researchers, radiologists and neuroscientists to better interpret brain scans. The work by Bennett Landman, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and radiology and radiological sciences, and Kurt Schilling, research assistant... Read More

A new study sheds light on how molecular subsets within the tumors of kidney cancer patients determine treatment outcomes and underscores the importance of personalized medicine in making therapy decisions. Read More

Findings from a national study published Nov. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) “do not support” the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the report concludes. Read More

Diabetes drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as exenatide (Byetta), are a promising and safe treatment for a rare form of obesity. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has begun recruiting up to 250 participants for a Phase 3 clinical trial testing an investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Read More

Peptides derived from the antimicrobial peptides secreted by frogs could function as microbicides to limit HIV transmission, while sparing protective vaginal bacteria. Read More

Angelika Amon, PhD, a pioneering cell and molecular biologist and winner of the 2018 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science, died Oct. 29 from cancer. She was 53. Read More

An innovative Vanderbilt program that brings together scientists and artists with the shared goal of scientific communication is set to expand with support from a three-year grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Read More